


The bus to Florida

by orphan_account



Category: Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Florida, M/M, ghost Rico??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Joe rides a haunted bus to work.





	The bus to Florida

When the cowboy steps on the bus the people already sitting down in their seats go quiet. The bus driver takes his money in silence. It's like he really is the lone cowboy, the man with no name, the spurs on his boots jangling as he steps down the aisle of the bus. He goes straight to the seat he's sat down in for five years straight. 

Rico likes that, it has a certain something to it, nothing tangible but all the same it makes him smile, a little tic of a grin. Joe is never as amused about it as he is, but Ratso can accept that. It's because he's alive. Once you're dead, you don't mind getting stared at as much. 

Joe has countered this sentiment by saying that it's not Rico who's getting stared at all, it's him, and he has to deal with that.

"Okay, valid point. Valid point. But riddle me this, would people be starin' if it hadn't been for me in the first place?" 

Joe puts a toothpick in his mouth sullenly, not replying, and Ratso gets the impression he's staring out the window of the bus, right through him. 

It's like they're a goddamn old married couple already. Five years on this goddamn bus. Their Florida anniversary, the term Rico coined, is coming up soon, and Rico's dropping hints about what he wants on his grave. 

"Pack of fags." Rico decides confidently, even though he's got all the cigarettes he needs already. When Joe's feeling generous, or when he gets payed enough to afford it, he leaves these types of gifts to Rico. There's always one burning out the corner of his mouth every time Joe sees him. Perks of being dead, you can disobey the no-smoking-on-the-bus rule. 

"Y'know," Joe sits up, straightens his shoulders slightly and brightens as if he's remembered something, "Folks swear when they get near this spot, the air smells like cigarettes even when there ain't nobody there to smoke 'em."

Rico's eyes narrow. Joe knows Rico hates it when he talks like he isn't right there, like he's not even real. So he retaliates, sharp and knowing.   
"Yeah? Oh, hey, Joe, I was just thinking too, you know what else these people can sense, with their... Supernatural intuition? Something they swear they can hear?" 

Joe winces, waiting for Rico to deliver the killing blow.

Rico lowers his voice, covering the corner of his mouth as if protecting a secret behind a hand. 

"A nutty cowboy talking to himself all alone, on the window side of the bus!" He finishes. Then he shakes his head. "You gotta get it together, Joe. Everyone I see on this goddamn bus thinks you've lost your marbles." Rico adds in a conspiratorial manor. He leans back and flashes Joe a smug smile after finishing this comment, the expression of a man who knows he's won a tv debate, and has been assured prior that the moderator was on his side, too. 

Joe reacts satisfyingly fast to this comment, almost jumping to his feet before he realizes the bus is still moving. He sits back down and narrows his eyes.   
"Aw hell, Rico, I don't gotta visit you anyway! Like ya said, all I do is look all kinds of- of crazy coming back here! There ain't nothing stopping me from getting off this bus and never ever getting back on!" He keeps his voice low and hissing so as not to disturb the other passengers, but everyone looks at him anyway. Some in bewilderment, others chose to look at eachother instead, exchange a worried glance if they were riding together. The rest of the passengers, the seasoned ones, find it funny in a passing way, not caring enough to pay attention but involved enough to smile.

Joe crosses his arms over his chest and looks away from Rico pointedly. There is a certain pout to his bottom lip that makes Rico feel bad. Joe, Rico thinks, must think about that sort of thing every day. It must get at him pretty bad. And if he didn't think about it every day, then Rico would be offended he wasn't thinking about him. 

Maybe he'd said it more hurtful than he'd intended it to come out. 

"Hey, don't get sore about it. I was just kidding, Joe." Rico says nervously, because this outburst was most likely in some way indicative of Joe's feelings, and if Joe felt like that truly, then...

Joe says nothing. 

"You ignoring me now?" Rico says, mad too, now. This is a great start, considering Joe's just stepped on the bus and there's at least four more stops before he gets to work. 

"Yeah? Well two can play at that game." Rico pulls up the collar of his coat, fiddling with his hands and his cigarette, shuffling around in his constricted allotted space.

Three minutes pass by in silence.

"Camels or Marlboros?" Joe finally asks him, and Rico sits up higher, happy Joe wants to talk again.

"Camels." Rico decides, after tilting his head to the side and making a few contemplative humming noises. These things are important, stuff a man has to think about. Joe knows this.

"Also, you don't gotta do anything special for the," Rico clears his throat. "The uh, anniversary. Remember, I ain't getting you nothing. So. You know how it works." 

"Five years." Joe says, shaking his head. Gradually the two of them are becoming a spectacle, an urban rumor everyone talks about, a tourist site that people stomp all over. It bothers him that people are so invested in the lives of others, invested in the idea of ghosts that they have to insert themselves into things, things he wishes they'd keep their noses out of. Five years and he's still getting bothered. He's still having photos snapped of him. The grieving cowboy and the empty seat next to him. It makes a picture all right. 

He's not going to lie to himself. The whole things screwy, out of the ordinary. Some of these people haven't even got his story straight. He's not grieving for a dead girl, he's not crazy- but it's odd. He understands that as much as the next person. Especially with Rico doing things ghosts are want to do, disturbing the living when they get too close. 

"How many people you had to send running off the bus this week?" Joe asks. It's the most interesting topic of conversation they can discuss now, because Joe found out quickly that if he talked about the second most interesting topic, about the girls he saw outside of the confines of the bus, Rico got moody. 

"Pretty recently, a guy sat down in your seat and so I knocked his hat off. As you do. It ended up hitting another lady behind him, and she thought he'd thrown it at her. Nearly started a goddamn fight." Rico says proudly. 

Joe smiles, nodding. Just like Ratso. 

"Oh, and there was some old broad that sat down in this seat on Wednesday, I think it was. She had one of those little dogs in her purse and the thing started barking at me. Yap yap. It went nuts. She had to zip her bag up over its head just to get it to shut up." 

Rico takes a drag of his cigarette. 

"Don't like sitting next to strangers, do ya Ratso?"

Rico doesn't seem to mind the use of his unfortunate nickname this time, if anything it's nostalgic, now. Five years can out a lot of stuff in perspective. He doesn't correct Joe. Old fucking married couple. 

"Yeah, cause this seats reseeerved." He stretches out the word, doing a very good impression of an apologetic waiter. "It's VIP's only." Rico pats Joe's knee, a mockery of sentimentality. 

Joe holds a hand to his chest, as if he's up on a podium, accepting an award. 

"Why, I'm flattered, Rico, I really am." 

"You better be. The lengths I go, Joe-"

They burst into laughter. 

A few people on the bus laugh along with Joe, too, but he doesn't care. It's just him and Rico on this bus, the bus that never arrived in Florida.


End file.
